WHAT'S ON BRITSKÉ LISTY

We are in 2010, not 1968

15. 7. 2010 / Karel Dolejší

"This habit of reducing a topic into a denunciation of the author is in the Czech rhetorical culture so widespread that it is worth an article itself", Přemysl Janýr wrote, in connection with my article (which he criticizes), saying he wrote about "the development of those changes in our values system", not about the credibility of any concrete party.

A Czech version of this article is in CLICK HERE

Oh well, and then, according to him here I come again reducing the subject into a denunciation of the author, as do, for example, the texts written about the supposed incorrigible Czech xenophobia, because, different from Janýr, I try to not close my eyes to what voters in 2010 are able to believe. Whoever wants to be cheated upon by a political party is not the hope of a democracy, but actually are the fuel for an even more populist dictatorship.

Janýr continues his argumentation saying that, "in the end" even in the late 1960s the public opinion forced the communist party of the time to bring about changes in our society. I think that's a very enlightening example: notwithstanding the bureaucratic mindset and rigidity of the communist party, their lasting use of repressive means against inconvenient opinions and especially the reprehensible tabboo-ization of subjects that could tickle Soviet intervention, even after the Warsaw troops invasion of August 1968 a huge part of our society relied on the communist party elite, who, from that trust, brought the so-called Normalization period to the country.

I am not at all the only one who has repeatedly warned that this year's election results are part of a process of privatization of Czech politics. We can take a look at what happened in Italy, where that privatization came with the "Berlusconi-zation" of that country, or flip through 1990s Russian newspapers, if we want to see what looks like when the public sector is taken over by oligarchs. It doesn't matter what citizens thought when choosing who to vote for, whether using their value system, as Janýr hopes, for the fact is that, with it, they have agreed with the privatization of our politics, not with a fix for our problems. To repeat poetic sentences about good intentions is already redundant here... Credulity mostly leads to deception.

If not even in 2010 Czech society appears to be smarter than in 1968, then it cannot expect any better consequences.

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Obsah vydání | Pondělí 2.8. 2010